apache/cassandra · error · InvalidTypeException

Cannot parse boolean value from "%s"

Error message

Cannot parse boolean value from "%s"

What it means

The boolean codec's parse() only accepts the exact literals "true" or "false" (case-insensitive) or NULL. Any other spelling — "yes", "1", "0", "t", "on" — is a valid concept but not valid CQL boolean literal syntax, so it throws InvalidTypeException.

Source

Thrown at src/java/org/apache/cassandra/cql3/functions/types/TypeCodec.java:1257

        private BooleanCodec()
        {
            super(DataType.cboolean());
        }

        @Override
        public int serializedSize()
        {
            return 1;
        }

        @Override
        public Boolean parse(String value)
        {
            if (value == null || value.isEmpty() || value.equalsIgnoreCase("NULL")) return null;
            if (value.equalsIgnoreCase(Boolean.FALSE.toString())) return false;
            if (value.equalsIgnoreCase(Boolean.TRUE.toString())) return true;

            throw new InvalidTypeException(
            String.format("Cannot parse boolean value from \"%s\"", value));
        }

        @Override
        public String format(Boolean value)
        {
            if (value == null) return "NULL";
            return value ? "true" : "false";
        }

        @Override
        public ByteBuffer serializeNoBoxing(boolean value, ProtocolVersion protocolVersion)
        {
            return value ? TRUE.duplicate() : FALSE.duplicate();
        }

        @Override
        public boolean deserializeNoBoxing(ByteBuffer bytes, ProtocolVersion protocolVersion)

View on GitHub (pinned to 88fd0f6a0e)

Solutions

1. Normalize the value before parsing: Boolean.parseBoolean for 1/0/yes/no mapping, then pass Boolean.toString(b).
2. Map "1"→"true" and "0"→"false" explicitly at the data-ingestion boundary.
3. Use codec.format(booleanValue) instead of parsing strings when you have a real boolean.

Example fix

// before
booleanCodec.parse("yes"); // throws
// after
boolean b = "yes".equalsIgnoreCase("true") || "yes".equals("1") || "yes".equalsIgnoreCase("yes");
booleanCodec.parse(Boolean.toString(b)); // "true"

static String toCqlBooleanLiteral(String v) {
    if (v == null || v.isEmpty() || v.equalsIgnoreCase("NULL")) return null;
    if (v.equalsIgnoreCase("true") || v.equals("1") || v.equalsIgnoreCase("yes") || v.equalsIgnoreCase("y")) return "true";
    if (v.equalsIgnoreCase("false") || v.equals("0") || v.equalsIgnoreCase("no") || v.equalsIgnoreCase("n")) return "false";
    throw new IllegalArgumentException("Not a boolean: " + v);
}

boolean isBooleanLiteral(String v) {
    return "true".equalsIgnoreCase(v) || "false".equalsIgnoreCase(v);
}

try {
    return booleanCodec.parse(raw);
} catch (InvalidTypeException e) {
    return booleanCodec.parse(toCqlBooleanLiteral(raw));
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling booleanCodec.parse(value) with values like "yes", "no", "1", "0", "Y", "T", "on", or any non-boolean token.

Common situations: Importing booleans from CSV/JSON where truthiness is encoded as 1/0 or yes/no; config-driven CQL literal generation using language-specific boolean strings; hand-written CQL in cqlsh using non-standard literals.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Invalid ... format", "must be in format X", "does not look like a ..." — invalid argument format errors across CLI tools and libraries — this error's family across 17 libraries.

Related errors

• Cannot parse 64-bits long value from "%s"
• Invalid boolean value, expecting 1 byte but got
• Cannot parse decimal value from "%s"
• Cannot parse 64-bits double value from "%s"
• text or varchar values must be enclosed by single quotes

AI-assisted analysis of apache/cassandra@88fd0f6a0e (2026-09-10). Data as JSON: /api/errors/93fa974647b31b8e. Report an issue: GitHub.